“The disciples recounted what had happened on the road to Emmaus

and how they had come to know Jesus in the breaking of bread.”

We return once again today to the events on Easter Sunday night.  The Gospel today talks of the two disciples of Jesus who had met Jesus as they journeyed toward the village of Emmaus.  These men had lost hope in their life, because they had not believed that Jesus would fulfill his promise of rising from the dead.  As they were walking along the road to Emmaus Jesus came up to them, but the disciples did not recognize him.  They began to open up their hearts to Jesus, and after begging the Lord to say with them for the evening, they discovered who Jesus was in the breaking of bread.  The same can happen to us.  As we journey through life, we may meet up with setbacks, with disappointments, with the cross.  Our Lord comes up to walk with us.  As we hear in the second reading today, “we have, in the presence of the Father, Jesus Christ, an intercessor who is just.” 

Perhaps we, like the apostles in the Gospel today, need the assurance from our Lord that he is alive.  Let us ask Jesus, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and say to him: “Stay with us, Lord”.  He actually is always with us!  And then we remember that he has stayed with us in the breaking of bread, in the Holy Eucharist.

As we prepare for the 1st Communion celebrations in the coming weeks, let us ask our Lord for a renewal of faith in His Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament.  So central and so important is the great mystery of the Holy Eucharist that our Holy Father, the late St. Pope John Paul II wrote a letter to the whole Church on the Eucharist, which was published on Holy Thursday 2003, the day of Jesus’ last Supper, the day this sacrament began.  And let us ask Mary that we may never forget that Christ is passing by at every moment of our life.

God Bless, Fr. Frank